Operational Press Briefing – 2020 Census Update
July 08, 2020

Coordinator:

Welcome, and thank you for standing by. I would like to inform all
participants that your lines have been placed on a listen-only mode until the
question and answer session of today’s call. Today's call is being recorded. If
anyone has any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like
to turn the call over to Michael Cook. Thank you, you may begin.

Michael Cook:

Hello, everyone and thank you for joining us. We have a few operational
updates to give you all today, and then follow up with some questions. The
2020 census, as you know, has been underway for many months now and we
are confident in the work we're doing.

As we - as you may know, we have shifted our operations. And since our last
operational press briefing, a few things have changed as well. During this
time, we will be discussing related to the 2020 census and our operations.

Today I'd like to welcome Timothy Olson, the Associate Director for field
operations and also Albert Fontenot the associate director for the Decennial
Programs. After - again after their presentations, there will be Q&A for credit
and media. So without further delay, I'll turn it over to Albert Fontenot
Associate Director for Decennial programs. Albert.

 Albert Fontenot: Thank you, Michael. Good afternoon. We are excited to be able to brief you
today and let you know that over 91,600,000 housing units are self-responding
to the census so far, with 34 days left to the official start of non-response
follow-up.

If you recall, we had targeted a 60.5 self-response rate by the official start of
the (unintelligible) and now we're 61.9% self-response.

When we design the 2020 census, we wanted to design a safe, secure, and
easy internet response option to allow people to easily respond using a
computer, a tablet, or a smartphone. They want us to be safe, secure, easy, and
dependable.

So far over 73 million housing units has chosen to respond using our internet
instruments, which does not have a single minute of downtime since we first
invited people to respond online on March 12, 2020.

We knew though that some people will not want to respond online. So we've
designed the surface to allow people to respond any way they wanted - online,
on a paper form, or over the phone.

So in addition to the 80% of responders who have responded online, over 17
million have responded using a paper form, and another 1.2million have
chosen to phone in their response to one of our call centers.

So we look at self-response by state, we're able to see that Minnesota
continues to lead all states with a response rate of 71.5%. Two states
Michigan and Washington State have exceeded their 2010 final self-response
right, and 11 additional states are beating their 2020 start of nerfing rates.

 On March 18, as we were moving along with the census, the COVID-19
outbursts suddenly threw a curveball at us. We had to adjusted our operations
to protect the health and safety of the American public and Census Bureau
employees. But we had to figure out how do we do that? By implementing the
guidance from federal state local authorities regarding COVID-19. And by
assuring, at the end of the process, we will get a complete and accurate count
of all community.

So we've been monitoring the changing conditions at state and local levels on
an ongoing basis. We began by moving some of our key operational dates.
You've been briefed on that, but I just want to touch on a couple of them as
we go through. There's a blog posting of our current operational adjustments
on our website.

But one of the important things that happened is we move the end of the selfresponse phase. Self-response was scheduled to end on July 31, it was
extended to October 31. So people don't have an opportunity to self-respond
to the census up until October 31.

So while I say that we're almost at a 62% self-response rate, people have an
opportunity to drive that number even higher.

The next major operational adjustment that I really want to talk about was
non-response follow up. That operation was basically picked up and moved 90
days.

It was scheduled to have been May 30th to July 31st. It was moved to August
11 through October 31, as a primary operation.

 Then the two big dates that the census drives toward to deliver their portion of
the reports to the President by December 31 and deliver - we're just getting
(unintelligible) States by April 1, 2021. We have requested that those dates
they move.

So December 31 we've requested an extension until April 30, 2021, to deliver
the report (unintelligible) account and up through July 31, 2021, to deliver the
(unintelligible) states.

As we continue to monitor the changing conditions at the national, state, and
local levels, information was provided to us from FEMA from state local
authorities. And we use that information to guide our timing on when could
we reopen operations. As a result, we made a decision to reopen some of our
operations on a phased basis across states.

We looked at resuming update leave and I'll explain that operation in a
moment and what we did. We looked at resuming opening the operations in
our area census offices, opening operations at our paper data capture centers
in India and Arizona. And resuming our fingerprinting and staff onboarding
process so we will be ready for non-response follow up.

The considerations that we really looked at when we made those decisions
was, had the states begun phased reopening? Does the data mean the federal
gating criteria, the Health and Human Services Bureau Health dashboard, the
FEMA risk data, and census data analysis support are health-based decision to
restart an operation? And thirdly, can we successfully start the operation
meeting the safety needs of our employees and the public?

We looked at localized conditions. We'll look at CDC guidelines, OMB
guidelines, we consulted with our regional staff. And we wanted to make sure

 we had personal protective equipment available. That we had spacing
available so we're doing all the right things to protect our staff and at the same
time afford us an opportunity to move back into the field and start conducting
operations.

The first operation we looked at was update leave. That's an operation that's
designed to occur in areas where the majority of housing units either do not
have mails delivered to the physical location of the housing unit, or we cannot
verify the information on that housing unit.

There are 6.8 million housing units in the United States and Puerto Rico that
fall in that category. That operation involves a census employee physically
delivering a 2020 census invitation to their houses. That does not have a high
contact like an interview. But we still have to have people out walking around
the neighborhood to then delivering the census invitations.

We suspended work on that operation on March 18. At that time, we had
about - got about 10.8% of the operation when we suspended operations.

We began on May 4, opening phase basis in those states to fit the criteria that
we're looking at and there were 13 states in that first criteria that we opened
on May 4.

Each week we reviewed every state's status and opened additional states. By
June 12 we had opened all 50 states. Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia and
all of our area census offices will reopen. That operation, as I said, was at 10%
- 10.8% when we suspended it on March 18. As of today, we're at 99.09%
complete. We primarily are not complete in some areas that’s we started last
week, the week of June 12.

 And many of those right now are tribal areas that had slower reopening
because of COVID and we were negotiating with the tribal leadership, the
tribal councils, the tribal presidents to determine our avail - our ability to
move in and start dropping off packets.

So we're at 90.9% of the 6.8 million housing units in the U.S and Puerto Rico.

Then we looked at some of our specialty operations that we were unable to
execute on time. Service-based remuneration is an operation that's conducted
at the service base locations and targeted non-sheltered outdoor locations
provide an opportunity for people who are experiencing homelessness to be
included in the census count.

So that would include food kitchens, which would include emergency shelters,
that would include all of those types of service facilities. That operation
normally took - would have taken place March 1 or April 1, and prior
operational adjustments it was scheduled for that time, but along came
COVID-19 and we could not go out in the field to conduct that operation.

We said we wanted to conduct consultations with our stakeholders and people
who work actively in that field to determine what time should we conduct that
operation to be most appropriately similar to that March-April date that we
normally would have conducted the operation.

So in late May and early June we consulted about 67 different organizations to
assist us in making that determination. 34 of them were direct service
organizations and national partners and stakeholders who advocate on behalf
of persons experiencing homelessness. Starting with the city, county, state
governments, and through federal agencies who also support the homeless.

 We were looking to determine what is the best time? There was a consistent
nearly unanimous recommendation to conduct our service space enumeration
that targeted none sheltered after location operations, you know, follow
timeframe. The reason they cited for this included seasonality they felt that
was a huge factor in counting the homeless.

The homeless providers said people move around based on the weather like
September more (unintelligible) where people would have been in March is
probably the single largest concern that the provider said. Summers are a more
difficult time to comfortably express to the homeless as fewer people use
shelters.

And we collect administrative data files from shelters on who spent the night
there (Unintelligible) Well, this will be very difficult to tell if they're spread
out and they're spending their nights outdoors. Impacts from the virus of
significance still right now in the homeless community and psychologists love
that if we tried to do it like July, early August will be too close to the current
outbreak and would be better if we could push it back into the fall.

And then the service providers themselves who are key partners to our
successful execution of this operation have burned out due to the pandemic
and they said that if the end of September was possible, it would give them
time to regroup and fully prepare to assist us.

So based on the feedback from our stakeholders and input from scripts of
experts, and consultation with operational staff, we selected September 22
through to 24th is the date to conduct service-based enumeration and targeted
non-sheltered outdoor location enumeration.

Another major challenge we had was college students. The first - there two

 different ways we enumerate college students. One is for those students who
are staying in university-owned housing, we think of that as on-campus but
sometimes it's not on campus, but the university owns the housing. And so the
majority of students who are residing in university-owned housing are
normally enumerated by electronic response data transfer.

We call it e-response. That's when the school provides us a roster or
administrative record of those students living in the dorms. 45% however,
normally, will ask us to leave questionnaires at the dorms, students pick up the
questionnaires fill them up themselves, put them back, and send someone to
pick them up. Since all the schools left early, there was no one available in the
dorms to choose the drop-off, pick up a questionnaire.

So we have worked with those schools to get all those (unintelligible) to
converts to handing us the data and in the administrative record form. Either
electronic or paper. So far over 50% of those students housing facilities have
sent us data as of this point. This is an operationally always did and it's just a
matter of adjusting those schools that we're not completely doing it for
administrative records to move that way.

But the second challenge were those students who live off-campus. Who livein privately-owned housing. We normally collect their data as regular selfresponse data. And if they don't self-respond, we collect it as non-response
follow up with an operation which we call early non-response to follow up,
(unintelligible)

And that (unintelligible) mid-April. But we were forced to cancel that too due
to the pandemic. And law schools that already closed or reverted to online
instructions and multiple students that move back home creating a huge
challenge and accounting for students because census residence guidelines say

 we count the students where they live or stay most of the time as of April 1.

And that's the campus and most campus towns are very dependent on that
count being an accurate count so they're getting proper funding. We have
moved to a new method of collecting the data for off-campus students, as of
June 17, for a start we begun to reach out to the college administrators to ask
them for administrative records for the off-campus students so we can
enumerate them in the correct location.

The Census Bureau director sent a letter to college and university presidents
ask for their support to provide these records and the records we receive will
enable us to match individuals and ensure that they're counted in the right
place.

We're asking the schools to provide us with the address (unintelligible) that
they keep on their file normally the registrar's office for the students who are
not living on campus and that will enable us to be able to get an accurate
count of the students.

And that will enable us to be able to get an accurate count of the students. As
we get ready to think about our biggest operation, non-response follows up,
we think about how do we make sure an operation that evolved for 38 area
census offices, 500,000 employees, comes off without a hitch.

We have done soft launches in every operation was done 2020 census so we
go out with smaller groups of enumerators or listers. They would start small,
they would test the operation with real people with real instruments and they
would be sure that everything works smoothly by the time, we kicked off the
main operation.

 We're also doing a soft launch for (unintelligible) Different operation is done
up until now because this involves activating in-person interviewing. And
there are three major factors we think about when we talk about activating inperson interviewing, is it safe to work? We only want to talk in person
(unintelligible) in locations where we can minimize risk to our employees and
the public. Does our state satisfy the federal grading criteria a second time?

Does the data support ongoing cycle a 14-day downward trend as a governor
declares the state entry into phase two is a similar declaration of where that
state is? The public response (unintelligible) areas. Have the effect of the virus
not substantially undermine the public's desire to respond to in-person
interviewing.

So we're looking at the criteria there a pattern of approved public behavior
consists of in-person contact, for example, a barbershop scope and restrictions
on public gatherings (unintelligible) or other personal business contacts open.

Are there levels of public engagements with systems and open response to
cooperate, for example, how much delivery services restaurants, theaters,
schools doing, and other ongoing restrictions regarding public engagement
that conflict with conducting personal visits. As all of you know, this has been
a very challenging time as the virus, (unintelligible) slows and increases in
certain areas of the country.

The third is are we ready to conduct personal interviewing. Are workers
available and willing to work? Do they have all the proper PPE in place? Is
the face mask available? Hand sanitizers (unintelligible) appropriate? And do
we have all the data collection equipment stays ready for them to go out?

So knowing that we're doing a soft launch or non-response follow up and

 three ways we call them to cycle 1A cycle 1B and cycle two. In cycle 1A six
area census officers one per region totaling approximately 10,000,
enumerators will be going out and conducting (unintelligible) on a basis such
that they're going to train on seven (unintelligible)

So these enumerators started training yesterday, we have over 10,000
enumerators out training in our different locations starting yesterday, and
they'll apply to the field will start collecting data on 716. Now six
(unintelligible) we announced on July 1, they were gardener (unintelligible)
Kansas City Missouri, Beckley West Virginia, Oklahoma County Oklahoma,
(Unintelligible) Louisiana, and Boise, Idaho.

As the record was processed, we had six some dropped, we had to add others.
Our challenges have been taking places that can be safe to send our people.
Say cycle 1B is being announced right now. So you're getting a live
announcement of our cycle 1B, six (unintelligible) Crystal City Virginia,
Hartford Connecticut, State College Pennsylvania, Evansville Indiana,
Wichita Kansas, and Tacoma Washington. So those are announced today, they
will deploy to the field on 723. The enumerators will be trained in 714.

And so slash cycle - cycle two will probably have close to 40 of our area
census (unintelligible) cycle. And that cycle will deploy to the field on 730
and the enumerators training will commence on 721. So we wanted to let you
know, you're the first to hear about that.

That's a high-level overview of where we are from a census operational
standpoint. At this time, I'm going to hand it off to Tim Olson, who's going to
give you more details about what's going on with our system.

Timothy Olson:

Albert Thank you. Thank you for that lead-in. And all of you on the call,

 much appreciated that you're taking time out of your busy day to join us for
the press briefings. Good to be with you. I want to springboard off of ours
these marks.

And despite that further what is happening on the ground throughout the
nation as our local census teams continue the field operations we are currently
conducting and performing those final tasks associated appointing our largest
live operation non-response to follow up.

Some of my comments may also provide some insight into what you as a
journalist can expect as we enter this final phase of data collection for 2020.
There are six topics I want to discuss and I'll start with the first one. And this
is about title 13 and the census confidentiality.

Oh, I think you're all aware that US code title 13 is what really guides the
bureau by law and all census employees take an oath of confidentiality. We
take this very seriously. If any of us were to violate that oath and reveal any
information about any individual address, a householder, or a business, we can
be prosecuted and would face up to five years in jail and or up to $250,000 in
fines.

And this oath fines every census employee including those hired in temporary
service positions, literally for the rest of our lives, not just while we are
employed by the Bureau. What this means for journalists is that census takers
are not permitted to have media or others following along with them during
their job. We instruct employees so that they become aware that a film crew
or another entity is observing them at a distance, to discontinue their work
immediately and current Hector supervisor.

If you have an interest in covering enumeration activity, I would encourage

 you to contact our Public Information Office (unintelligible) headquarters.
They can point you to materials we've already created in anticipation of the
enumeration phase such as zero, that may be able to substitute for any inperson filming of the census takers' job.

Keep in mind, this prohibition for protecting confidentiality It also applies to
any other person or entity that wants to observe or follow along with a census
taker, including elected officials, law enforcement, immigration authorities, or
any other person or entity that wants to observe the enumeration. We take this
confidentiality seriously, and we request your support in honoring this
throughout the enumeration phase of the 2020 census.

Let me go to the second topic. And this is really about the finalization of the
hiring, for non-response follow up. As background, we have nearly 3 million
applicants available for consideration as temporary census workers. And even
though we are no longer actively recruiting nationwide, we continue receiving
every single day about 1500 new applicants through our 2020 census.gov/jobs
portal.

This tool is much larger than we needed. In our original plan, it permits us to
fill all user positions to conduct the 2020 census. We are very aware that with
the Coronavirus pandemic, some applicants may no longer be interested. And
there may be locations where this is more pronounced.

About a third of our applicants or older persons considered high risk of the
virus and we are actively monitoring all hiring efforts to ensure we have
enough people hired and working in their community to complete the job on
time. I will add that we have not seen any substantial decline or declarations
from people that we are hiring uses a virus and we're optimistic that they will
continue going forward.

 But just one reason that we over hired, to make sure that we have enough
employees in every area to complete the census on time. Right now, and I'm
speaking a lifetime. Each of our 248 area census offices is just in the final
stages of wrapping up the hiring process or the 500,000 temporary service
workers that begin knocking on doors August 11.

And as I mentioned just a moment ago, a small number of offices do begin
going knocking earlier on July 16, as part of our soft launch, but the majority
will begin on August 11 because we know from experience that not everyone
who has been hired will show up for training or complete their training and
report to the field. We by design, hire many more than the 500,000 needed to
do the job to date.

And this is, as of yesterday, more than 900,000 job offers have been extended
and accepted. And these individuals are in the various stages of the hiring
process to continue` where we're at 700,000 of those 900,000 have already
completed getting their fingerprints and 500,000 have already passed their
background check and if we were to hire them today, they would be ready to
onboard as an employee.

So the primary activity happening as we speak in our area census offices is
getting everyone who has accepted a job offer to follow through and complete
the fingerprint process. Training for the August 11, beginning of non-response
in the field, that training for numerators begins July 31. And so we have more
than three weeks to complete the process for those still in the hiring pipeline.

And based on the numbers I just shared, we are in an incredibly good place to
be fully staffed and conduct non-response follow up as planned. Let me talk
about the third topic and that's personal protective equipment and census

 employees and the American people.

Our commitment throughout the census process has been to protect every
employee and the American people through all interactions we have. Our
protective equipment, along with training and expectations that all staff
meeting social distancing and all very interactions are the cornerstones of our
commitment to protect people's health during this pandemic. You may have
noticed that we updated our policies very recently.

And now require all census employees to have any public interactions to wear
a face mask, regardless of location or geography. This came as part of our
continual review of our policies and practices related to conducting a
dependable census during the pandemic. So let me give you a little deeper
detail on when (unintelligible) personal protective equipment or PPE.

To date, we have acquired more than 40 million items of PPEs for use by our
office and field staff. These items come into our national processing center in
Jeffersonville Indiana, and then they are picked up and redistributed to our
region, and our area census offices.

Of that number, and I think this may be of interest to you, of the 40 million
items, 2.4 million masks have been acquired 14.4 million individual gloves,
21.4 million individual disinfectant wipes, 3.6 million individual hand
sanitizer bottles for field staff and 48,000 gallons of hand sanitizer that is used
in all of our census facilities.

Let me go to the fourth topic and that is mobile questionnaire assistance. This
has been a very visible program. It has had to be modified in light of the
Coronavirus and will now launch nationwide in areas where the case to do so
next week on July 13.

 The program originally focused on sending staff to community events and
locations where people naturally congregated in low responding areas, to
events such as community festivals, parades, libraries, and churches, but with
all of the changes that have happened in our society since Mid-march, we
have modified the programs.

So that large public gatherings are no longer included in our program. We will
launch the program next week and we will be available in locations with our
staff where people do so for essential services, such as grocery store and
pharmacy influences, libraries that have reopened, and other life locations
where the response is low.

In addition to the original plans, (MQA) staff the Mobile Questionnaire
Assistance staff will also work closely with our partnership staff to help drive
self-response in the lowest responding neighborhoods.

In some cases, they will be placing fliers on doors with one final appeal for
self-response. And they will be participating in our July final course. And I
will talk about that at the very end of my discussions. So, in short, MQA will
launch next week in areas where it is safe to provide the service and people
will be able to respond right on the spot and avoid having the census people
knock on their door starting in August.

We often talk about non-response follow up which is clearly the largest
operation we do during the census. But let me talk briefly about the smaller
field operations that we do. Some are already in the field and others will start
very soon. You're probably all very familiar we began the Remote Alaska
Operation in January in (unintelligible) Alaska and this operation is conducted
among villages that are not on the road system in rural Alaska. But due to the

 pandemic enumerations in these villages were ceased mid-March.

Since then we've resumed the enumeration in these villages that have not yet
been completed. And now we have completed 89% of the population of these
living in the villages.

We still have a handful of villages remaining, and we will complete all of
them by our new operational deadline of August 31.

I'll briefly mention updated numerate; it is our smallest operation of the 2020
census. It is only conducted in rural Maine in Southeast Alaska.

It's a small workload of about 8,500 addresses and about 50 staff are working
there finishing this up right now and should be out of the field fairly soon.

Albert talked about update leave and as he said we are as of this morning
99.09% complete, and just a few are remaining locations to finish updating the
address within those areas and handle the delivery of census questionnaire
packages to the residence.

As Albert mentioned, the areas that we are not yet complete are primarily a
handful of American-Indian reservations that have been close to outsiders, and
most have been free often for our work. The largest area that is probably
contributing primarily to that last small portion of a percent is the
(unintelligible) nation which is the largest tribal area in the country.

It has been closed for much of the update leave operations, but recently their
leadership granted permission to the Census Bureau to resume the update
leave field operations on their land. And as of yesterday, we are now more
than 50% complete. Good pointers enumerations we began the infield portion

 on July 1 with approximately 10,000 employees. Approximately one-third of
the 200,000 proof quarters throughout the nation had previously committed to
providing an e-response for their facility.

And now we are following up with the remaining facilities to ask for them to
either provide an e-response or to utilize the drop-off pick-up paper
questionnaire process, the census worker would simply drop often
enumeration materials to a manager at the facility and then come pick up
those completed forms a few days later.

We expect given the current environment that the supermajority of these
facilities will provide data in these manners and in-person interviews of group
quarter residents will be extremely limited. Enumeration of all group quarters
will be completed by the new schedule deadline of December 3.

Albert talked about service-based enumeration. I will move on to my next
topic.

And this is actually my final portion before the Q&A. And it's what I referred
to earlier when talking about mobile questionnaires systems that the bureau is
beginning, actually next week. What we're titling the July Final Push
Campaign and so starting next week through early August, the bureau will
reengage all elements of our Integrated Communications Campaign to
specifically urge self-response among residents to avoid door knocking begins
in August.

This campaign, it will be nationwide, but it will have extra emphasis and
resources spent in terms of advertising social media, in partnership events in
the lowest responding areas throughout the nation. During this time, we will
have paid advertising, social media, earned media, grassroots partnership

 effort, and mobile questionnaire assistance available to actively seek a higher
response in the lower responding areas of the country.

You may have observed teams of census staff and city volunteers distributing
fliers, in the lowest responding tracks of the given cities. You may see
neighborhood car parades hosted by the city's mayor or another person of
great notoriety urging those residents to respond now.

You will absolutely see a very high level of paid advertising throughout the
nation and in these low responding areas. And you will also be aware that
social media and earned media efforts will be extensive and targeted to track
some zip codes that have the lowest response so far.

Our goal is during this final period before non-response begins in the second
week of August that we bump up that self-response as much as we can. We're
already one and a half percentage points above what we expected. And we
believe that through these new efforts we are launching this in a week from
now that we will even achieve a higher self-response than we currently have.

I'm going to close. It's my hope that this information has been helpful to you
and I look forward to any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Michael Cook:

Thank you, Timothy. Appreciate that. And before we begin our Q&A portion,
I just want to remind accredited media that are waiting to ask their questions
to press star 1 to ready yourself and get you in the queue to ask your question.
And in respect of time, knowing that we have within the hour we want to
make sure that we've had as many people ask questions about the topics that
have been specifically discussed today.

 So I would hope that or ask that your line of questions are germane to the
topic at hand and to remind everyone that like times past if you have
additional questions about the vast goings-on of the 2020 census please reach
out to us in PIO. You can email us at pio@census.gov with those questions,
and we'll follow up with you as soon as possible.

And as you make yourself ready in the queue, I also would like to remind
everyone that you can visit 2020 census.gov where we have an electronic
press kit that we set up specifically for the three things that we have in the
past, where you can find information about the 2020 census, not only or
notwithstanding the fact that you can go to 2020 census.gov and take a look at
the response rate map, which can be found by simply clicking on getting the
fax and then navigating to response rates.

As you know, everything that we're doing is the whole thing to get people to
respond to the 2020 census. So we need to get as many people responding as
possible. So operator I think we have our first caller in the queue. Are you
ready now?

Coordinator:

Thank you. I am ready. Our first question comes from (Hunting Wings) with
(unintelligible), your line is open.

(Hunting Wings): Hi, thank you very much. My first question is if Congress does not extend its
statutory reporting deadlines for the census results, as the statutory requested
four-month extension for both, of course, (unintelligible) data can the Census
Bureau produce the enforcement count by December 31 and what happens if
there is no extension?

Albert Fontenot: This is Albert Fontenot. We really don't want to speculate on any legislative

 matters, but we First Congress regularly and every member's office and every
committee staffer with whom we speak, Shares the goal of complete
inaccurate 2020 census count, and I understand our needs for that - that date in
that time. We are past the window of being able to get those counts by those
(unintelligible) to this point.

(Hunting Wings): Thank you. And if I can ask a follow-up question. Did the Census Bureau
consider sending another round of paper questionnaire to households that have
not responded? Yes. And if so, why did you decide not to do that, or is there a
plan to do that?

Albert Fontenot: Yes, I'll take that question too most of the people have not responded received
a questionnaire our first round of questionnaires which was sent with initial
invitation where we some questioners to 20% of the nation.

And then in our course mailer, we send questionnaires to everyone who has
not yet responded, so they would have received two sets of questionnaires.
Our experience has shown a third questionnaire won't get the response from
someone who didn't respond to the first two questionnaires.

And the fact that unlike prior censuses, we still have two ways they can still
respond before we knock on their door, they can still respond by telephone
and they can still respond online. And then lastly, we will have 500,000
census enumerators knocking on their doors. So that made it seem much more
efficient to continue to focus on getting people to respond to one of the three
methods that are available right now.

Michael Cook:

Thank you, Albert. Thank you for allowing the question. Operator, do we
have our next caller?

 Coordinator:

Our next question comes from (Reed Ticker) with Bloomberg News. Your
line is open.

(Reed Ticker):

Hi, thank you for having us. I really appreciate it. I just wanted to follow up
on the hiring. I know you mentioned the plan is still to hire, you know, have
around 500,000 temporary workers in the field in terms of thinking about, you
know, when those people, you know, can start getting paid and enjoying the
tails of the census like you guys have been releasing, it's a thought that that
would be when the training starts with the end of July or when they physically
start in August.

Michael Cook:

Thank you for that question (unintelligible) So we record weekly, as you
know, and that is at the end of a pay period, which will follow approximately
via (unintelligible) has closed out. So people do get paid for training.
Absolutely. And that begins at the very end of July, and then at the
(unintelligible) training until we begin August 11. So you'll start seeing these
numbers reflected sometime in middle to the late - middle third week of
August.

(Reed Ticker):

(Unintelligible) Thank you

Michael Cook:

Thank you for that question. Operator, do we have our next caller?

Coordinator:

Thank you. Our next caller is (EJ) (unintelligible) dissociated press your line
is open.

(EJ):

Yes, hello. Thanks for having this news conference. The Commerce
Department's Office of Inspector General has sent a letter to the Census
Bureau asking for qualifications and other information related to the
appointments of (unintelligible) and had them coordinate (unintelligible) to

 the Bureau in high-rank roles. I was wondering if the census bureau received
that letter. If they have responded or plans to respond and what response to the
Census Bureau have the criticisms of these appointments?

Michael Cook:

This is Michael Cook. We have received a letter we do plan to respond to the
depart Commerce's IG office(unintelligible) office on that report. Do you have
any other questions about the topics that Albert Fontenot and Timothy Olson
reported on today?

(EJ):

I do not. But I was, you know, there's been some talk that these two gentlemen
are not qualified. So if you're in a position or into the Census Bureau have any
comment on that?

Michael Cook:

We'll adjust those comments when we respond, to the inquiry at the end so
you have to stay tuned for that response, but I appreciate your interest.
Continue making the Census Bureau. Operator do we have our next caller?

Coordinator:

Thank you. Our next question comes from (Michael Mackinagi) with a TC
roll call. Your mind is open.

(Michael Mackinagi): Hi, yeah. Thank you for having me. can you hear me?

Michael Cook:

Yes, we can

(Michael Mackinagi): So my question kind of piggybacks off the previous question. Were the
new deputy director or advisor, part of any of the conversations or operational
decisions about, you know, launching (unintelligible) or the final push
operation that you've talked about today.

Albert Fontenot: This is Albert Fontenot No, they were not.

 (Michael Mackinagi): Okay, and are they part of the conversations about other operational
decisions or things like advertising or the advertising campaign about
operations going forward?

Michael Cook:

This is Michael Cook. No, they were not.

Albert Fontenot: And I just might add, we have conducted short launch in every operation
we've conducted in the 2020 census. This is a continuation of something that
has proved very successful for our entire operations.

Michael Cook:

Thanks. Operator, do we have our next caller?

Coordinator:

Thank you. Our next question comes from (Elizabeth News) (unintelligible),
your line is open.

(Elizabeth news): Hi, I know you guys are using some new technology and new tech solutions
for the non-response part of the program. I just wondered if having to delay
your processes changed any of the ways you'd be working with the new
technology to collect the information out in the field during the non-response
Part or we are having the new technology helps you gather the information in
a more efficient way or different timeframes.

Albert Fontenot: Hi, this is Albert Fontenot on thank you for your question. We believe that's a
new technology that we're using to help us collect information more
efficiently. And especially the routing technologies that we're using.

We have a program called the optimizer that helps route our enumerators in
the fields with the most effective route, from address to address, if you realize
this is not a sequential address operation, they're going to where people

 haven't responded.

So the system can take their time availability data that we have on when
people are most likely to be at home and then schedule them to make our
cloud during that timeframe. That is one of the operations of every one of our
tests has proven to be indispensable in terms of making operation more
efficient and more effective. And so we do anticipate that continuing once we
roll the full operation.

Michael Cook:

Thank you for the question and thank you, Albert. Operator, do we have our
next caller?

Coordinator:

Thank you. Our next caller is (Brian Francis) with Fort Wayne Journal
Gazette. Your line is open

(Brian Francis):

The mobile questionnaire assistance that begins next week is nationwide,
correct?

Timothy Olson:

Yeah, this is Tim Olson it is Nationwide in areas that are based on our
analysis of the health data that are considered safe for our employees to be
out. So it's not going to be physically everywhere.

It will be in selected areas where it is deemed safe. I will also add the design
of the mobile questioners this program is to be in locations where the current
response rate is low. And so they are, that's where they target. These could be
some rural areas; these could be urban areas. Exactly. But that's where they
focus on.

(Brian Francis):

Well, I live in a city with 275,000 people, with many grocery stores and
library branches. How many workers with the city like mine expect to see next

 week?

Timothy Olson:

So in a city like yours, there will probably be between 20 and 30.
(unintelligible)representatives, that will be working, of course, they're not
going to be at every grocery store, or every pharmacy, they will go into the
neighborhoods, were in Fort Wayne, you've got the lowest responding
neighborhoods and go to associated service locations that serve those
neighborhoods.

(Brian Francis):

Very good. Thank you.

Michael Cook:

Thank you for the questions. Just a reminder for all the reporters who are
wanting to ask questions. All you have to do is press star one to get in the
queue. And also, just as you're crafting your stories and taking the information
that I want to know and symbols and a briefing on today, I just wanted to flag
for you that in the Census Bureau's newsroom.

Today, our directors also posted a blog entitled update on the 2020 census,
which will allow you to get some more sound and some more insights into
where we are in our campaign accounts. Completely inaccurately, everyone in
the United States. Operator do we have our next caller.

Coordinator:

Our next question comes from (Kaylee Doyle) With the Columbus Dispatch,
your line is open.

(Kaylee Doyle):

Hi, I'm Kaylee Doyle. But that's okay. I just wanted to follow up on the
college students who lived off-campus. I know that I believe as you
mentioned the bureau has sent information to college administrators that
would send half of their contact information for students who lived offcampus last semester.

 But I'm curious, is there any plan to contact, you know, students, especially
seniors who graduated and they have not, you know, given permanent
addresses that they've now moved to or how you'll make up for the
discrepancy between students who didn't give, you know, forwarding
addresses?

Albert Fontenot: Okay, let me clarify your question, but thank you for your questions. The
addresses we're looking for was that student living as of April 1,
(unintelligible), they move to lighter after they graduate or where they move
to after the school term ended because the (unintelligible) where they lived or
stayed most of the time as of April 1.

So what we're really looking for from the university, and in your case, Ohio
State, for example, is the registrar's information on the mailing address the
local mail (unintelligible)as a student as of April 1, 2020.

(Kaylee Doyle):

Okay, I was just curious if you needed their current contract information
wherever they are now in order to seek out where they were on April 1, but
you're saying ...

Albert Fontenot: The roster data as of April 1 would give us what we need to count them where
they should have been counted as of April 1, we would not need to reach out
and contact them at that point.

(Kaylee Doyle):

Okay, so you can just go off of what the universities give you.

Albert Fontenot: Yes.

(Kaylee Doyle):

And that's not a violation of(unintelligible)the federal education Privacy Act,

 they're willing to do that.

Albert Fontenot: We've talked with the (unintelligible) and they have supported this particular
initiative. One thing that the schools do the same as they provide us with those
who live on campus, the same kind of information, we maintain the
confidentiality of information was even more of ironclad confidentiality
(unintelligible) the data of the student remains confidential in the hands of the
Census Bureau.

(Kaylee Doyle):

Understood, thank you very much.

Michael Cook:

Thank you for those questions. And thank you, Albert. Operator do we have
another caller?

Coordinator:

Thank you. Our next question comes from (Kara Bahamporo) with the
Washington Post, your line is open.

(Kara Bahamporo):

Hi, thanks for taking my call. my question is about PPE. And the

directions for census takers, the door to door. Are they getting the same
equipment across the board nationwide, and what kinds of the mask are they
reusable usable?

Do they get more than one? is a two - (unintelligible) of sanitizing? Do they
have to then keep coming back to the office so they fill it? Are they being
posed with something, you know, by their things? So that's part of the
question and then the other part of the question, specifically, how to - how are
they directed to approach people when they knock on the door - are they
supposed to knock on the door and back 6 feet’s or are they supposed to,
(unintelligible)is this considered, you know, problem keeping that six-foot
difference what are they directed to do? Reading instruction (unintelligible)

 the door to door activity.

Timothy Olson:

This is Tim Olson; I appreciate your question. And I'm so glad to have you,
your child on the call as well. You just kind of got my day.

(Kara Bahamporo):

Timothy Olson:

(unintelligible).

That's great. To answer your questions, every field employee received a set of
people equipped in numerous a number of maps, it is individual gloves and
the hand sanitizer on bottles. And the intent is that each employee will have
enough through the duration of their service with us which is typically four to
six to eight weeks.

If they need more, we supply them. The mask is - they are reusable, washable,
cloth, mask, and the manufacturer says they're good for up to 15 washes. We
have calculated in our assumptions that we would use them for up to 10
washes and equip the individual with enough to last them through the full
operation that they're hired.

We provide all the materials to them, and if they run out, he has extra that we
can deliver In terms of the actual protocol when you are conducting in-person
interviews, you're correct is at their door they would not they would ring a
doorbell and then they would maintain the minimum six-foot focal distance in
India interaction with the person.

We have modified our instructions to feel (unintelligible) in light of the
coronavirus where in the past we have never explicitly told them they could
not enter into somebody is domiciled to interview the request of the
householder. Now they are effectively inhibiting any entryway into somebody
down the file and must interview the outside of somebody locked out

 (Kara Bahamporo):

in apartment building Nursing are typical teenagers in that state or if a

person is sent out more than a person's 16 plan D for them

Timothy Olson:

well in an apartment building with hallways, you know, the intent is they
would still stay outside of the apartment unit, they would maintain that stitch
foot. And if somebody else is traveling through the hallway, just another
resident, they would just continue the interview until that person is passed to
the confidentiality.

(Kara Bahamporo):

Timothy Olson:

Card able to maybe get the person her number and cotton in a corner.

We're actually our experiences once you've got somebody at the door, the
interview is so short, you know, usually five to seven minutes is better to
complete it on the spot, rather than starting the phone tag after the fact. And
often when somebody does something Get them on the phone after the fact.
So we do it right on the slot.

Michael Cook:

Thank you for those are the questions, sir. I want to try and get to the rest of
the people in the queue. operator to make your next caller.

Coordinator:

Thank you. Our next question comes from (Janet Abney) With the Wall Street
Journal, your line is open.

(Janet Abney):

Hi, thanks for taking my questions during the changes that you've had a
negative result of the pandemic, which groups of Americans are you most
concerned could be undercounted this year?

Albert Fontenot: I think this is awesome. Oh, thank you for your question. I think I am not
concerned that because of pandemics we will have 100 accounts. I think the

 groups that have historically been undercounted or the rest have been
undercounted. We think young children are at risk of saying or their child.

We think that certain ages of minority men aren't being undercounted. These
are the people that have typically been undercounted in a census. And it will
typically do not respond, don't respond or knock on their doors. So what we're
trying to do right now is encourage our partners in the community to let
people know that that participation in the census, if you're a young man or
minority, is safe, and is critically important to the development and growth of
your community.

Letting parents know that every one of your children counts is important. So
we see the same challenges that we do in our regular sectors because we've
made adjustments to accommodate to COVID-19 saw real challenges of
people that are normally hard to count, and how do we continue to encourage
them to be counted?

Timothy Olson:

This is Tim Olson I just want to add to Al's response. This message as we are
obviously always concerned About an undercount in particular populations
where we know that that is a challenge. But this is unique in that we have
nearly 400,000 organizations that are actively partnering with us the actual
number is $386,600.

Coordinator:

Excuse me this as the operator, it looks like I see other speakers have dropped
off.

Michael Cook:

Hello operator can you hear me?

Coordinator:

I can hear from you. Yes.

 Michael Cook:

Okay.

(Janet Abney):

But since we walked in here, are you able to give us the details on what the
response rate for young children has been and how that compares to the
previous (unintelligible) most recent census,

Albert Fontenot: Well, we don't have that. We won't have that for the 2020 census until we start
tabulating the data. We haven't started to tabulate the data yet at this time. So I
don't have any of the details, demographic data on 2020 at this point in time.

(Janet Abney):

Thank you.

Coordinator:

Would you like to go to the next question or do you want to wait for the
speakers to dial back in?

Albert Fontenot: Let's go to the next question.

Michael Cook:

And Tim Olson is dialing back in right now, Al.

Coordinator:

Thank you. I have a question comes from Gabby Birenbaum with The Hill.
Your line is open.

Gabby Birenbaum:

Hi there, can you hear me?

Albert Fontenot: Yes, hi.

Gabby Birenbaum:

Great. Well, thanks so much for hosting us. My question is, some of the

states that currently have lower response rates -- like Texas and South
Carolina -- are the ones where cases of the virus is peaking. So do you have
any plans in place for if those states go back to more of a Phase 1 status, and

 how would that affect your ability to do door knocking?

Albert Fontenot: I'm sorry, would you repeat your question again? I just didn't quite get all of it.

Gabby Birenbaum:

Yes, sure. I was just saying, some of the states that currently have lower

response rates -- like Texas and South Carolina -- are the ones where the virus
seems to be peaking - where cases seem to be peaking. So do you have any
plans in place for if those states go back towards Phase 1 -- considering the
peaks -- and how would that affect your ability to do door knocking?

Albert Fontenot: Well in the states that you've mentioned -- or any states that are on the lower
side of our response rate and where the virus is peaking -- we are increasing
our media communication in those states, letting people know there's an
opportunity to stay safe, stay home and still self-respond to your - to the
census. It's one of the core things that people can do in this census, they
couldn't do in another census.

No one has to come to your - you don't have to have any contact. You can go
online, or you can pick up the telephone, or you can mail the paper form -that we already sent you -- in. So, we're focusing on that in the coming month
and a half, that these people still have an opportunity to self-respond and
move up, in terms of getting their response done.

In addition to that, when we get opportunities in a local area where -- and this
is down to the county area -- where we look at the data for our county, we
could activate some of our M2A staff in that county, we can activate some of
our partnership staff in those counties, and work to increase the lowerresponse rates in a field capacity.

Tim, are you back on?

 Tim Olson:

Yes. I'm sorry everybody. I got - I lost the connection. I'm back.

Albert Fontenot: The question related to how we were responding in states like Texas and West
Virginia and some of the states that are impacted by the virus and were fairly
low-response-rates states.

Tim Olson:

Yes. So, I mean, we're - obviously, we're working very hard to increase the
self-response and, when it's safe to do so, we will begin the non-response
follow-up process.

Michael Cook:

Thanks for that, Al and Tim. Operator, do we have any more callers in the
queue?

Coordinator:

Thank you. Yes, we do. Our next caller, Jory Heckman with the Federal News
Network, your line is open.

Jory Heckman:

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. You'd mentioned early in the conversation
here that there's been no downtime with the Internet self-response, and I know
that platform has been built to exceed expected concurrent users. My question
for the two of you is, just if you have an estimate on what the peak load on
that platform has been in terms concurrent users, or -- put more generally -was it even close to the capacity?

Albert Fontenot: This is Al Fontenot. If I remember -- and I am now stretching my memory -- I
think one day we hit, like, close to 90,000 concurrent users, and it was
planned to be able to handle 600,000 concurrent users. We tested it repeatedly
at that level, and I don't think we ever got anywhere close to that.

Tim Olson:

Yes. This is Tim Olson. I'll just concur with Al's memory. He's accurate.

 Albert Fontenot: But I think there's one other factor. We tested it at that level, but our statistical
analysts didn't project it to ever get over 120. But we wanted to test it to make
sure that we have all the bases covered.

Jory Heckman:

All right. Very good. Thank you.

Michael Cook:

Thank you. Operator, we'll go ahead and take the next couple questions, then
close out the news conference. Operator, our next caller.

Coordinator:

Thank you. Our next caller is Daniel Knowles of The Economist. Your line is
open.

Daniel Knowles: Hello. Hi. Thank you for doing this. I'm just wondering, going into the follow
up on this sort of door-to-door knocking. How does the fact that people are
going to be at home a lot more change that work? Is there even a chance that it
might even be sort of, you know, a bit better -- the response rate -- when
you're going and knocking on doors because everybody's at home?

Tim Olson:

This is Tim Olson. I appreciate the question. Obviously if people are home -working from home or, you know, something different than we would have
been doing -- it will make the opportunity to reach them much easier. And so,
that would be a positive from our non-response follow-up process. Good
question.

Michael Cook:

Thank you for that.

Daniel Knowles: Thank you. Great. (Unintelligible) perfect.

Michael Cook:

Operator, do we have our, I believe, last caller?

 Coordinator:

Okay. Our last caller is Adrian Skabelund with Arizona Daily Sun. Your line
is open.

Adrian Skabelund:

Yes. Thanks so much. Kind of a follow up on Gabby's question. I guess I

was just wondering, kind of, given how many states are seeing big outbreaks
again -- including Arizona -- if there's a worry that there may be - it may
never be safe or safe enough to kind of restart ground operation in some parts
of the country this year?

Albert Fontenot: Well this is Al Fontenot. I don't want to speculate on "what if," too much, but
I can give you a little history of what we're doing.

After assessing our soft-launch areas - we start at the state level. We look at
the state level. We take it down to the county level. And we determined that in
some states that may be experiencing increase in the virus, it seems to be in
isolated areas. We're looking at opening up areas within that state that are
having safe levels of the virus.

I have several states right now that, if I look at - purely at the state-level data,
the state - I could not open up the state. If I look at the county-level data, I see
that the concentration of the virus is in one corner of the state -- maybe
because of a meatpacking plant, maybe because of a (prayer group), maybe
because of some of those kinds of things -- and the other counties have - are
low-risk counties.

And so, we're opening up on a sub-state level to be able to ensure that we
maximize our ability to get to every place we can, as early in the process as
we can.

 The second thing we're doing -- and Tim may talk about this more -- but we
are doing what we call "frontload hiring." We're hiring more people than we
need to conduct the operation at the beginning of the operation, so we can get
a good jump start on places that we can work.

So as the process moves on, if other areas open up later, we're able to relocate
staff -- to assign staff to those places, to be able to double-up and triple-up -to be able to work those areas to get them completed. That's the plan. So we're
planning for alternatives that (say) there will be some areas that will be more
difficult for us to get into at this point in time.

Tim do you have anything to add to that?

Tim Olson:

Yes, Al. This is Tim Olson. So, Al is right on the money with what he just
shared. Normally, in the normal world, non-response follow up is scheduled
for a 12-week period from beginning to end. We are staffing at a level in
(EKTO) -- hiring and training and putting on the ground -- so that we can
complete the non-response workload within that geography within six to
seven weeks.

That gives us some flexibility -- actually an incredible amount of flexibility -that, if there are areas -- geographies -- where we cannot begin -- as our plan
is -- August 11, we could then open them up a little bit later. And with
completing areas early - earlier than the October 31 deadline, that frees up
additional staff that are 1. that are experienced, 2. they are eager to continue
working, and we could -- as needed -- be able to shift people around.

Michael Cook:

And this is Michael again. And true to form, after we said "last caller," we've
got a number of people who have stepped up. And in the spirit of us, you
know, conducting our census, we often say that, you know, the census is

 something that happens across the country, in communities across the country.
I see a number of the reporters that are in the queue are from local broadcasts
and print media outlets.

So if, Tim and Al, if you will just have a couple more moments, I going to let
a couple other reporters ask some questions because I know that they are
about local, on-the-ground questions. So, Operator, if you will, we'll take the
next couple of callers. Can we get the next caller in please? Thanks.

Coordinator:

Thank you. (Bobbie Russell) with KCWI News. Your line is open.

(Bobbie Russell): Hey guys, thanks for taking this question. I'm in (Castle,) Wyoming, near the
Wind River Reservation, and you all mentioned that you have - that you're
struggling to get forms to Indian tribes. Is the Wind River Reservation or, like,
other rural parts of Wyoming one of those parts that you can't get paper forms
to?

Tim Olson:

This is Tim Olson. I cannot give you a specific on the Wind River
Reservation, but I believe in Wyoming we are done. So, I could be wrong on
that. And Michael, if you could get (Bobbie's) information, we could let her
know after the fact.

Michael Cook:

Yes, (Bobbie) if you could please reach out to us (301) 763-3030. That's the
line for PIO, we'll go ahead and...

(Bobbie Russell): PIO line Sir?

Michael Cook:

Correct. (301) 763-3030. Thank you.

(Bobbie Russell): I'll give you all a call after. Thank you so much.

 Michael Cook:

Very welcome. Operator, next caller?

Coordinator:

Thank you. Our next caller is Brian Bull with KLCC. Your line is open.

Brian Bull:

Hi. Yes. Can you hear me?

Tim Olson:

Sure can. Hi Brian.

Albert Fontenot: Brian, I'm having trouble hearing you for some reason.

Brian Bull:

My question is, if you can hear me, I was just trying to follow up on - the
2010 Census had an undercount of American Indian and Alaskan Native
people by 10 - by almost 5%. And so I'm just concerned if - I'm just curious to
know if any of these folks expect to be able to avoid undercounts for the 2020
Census given some of the Covid-19 issues?

Tim Olson:

Well this is Tim Olson. You know, we - you're correct. The American Indian
and Alaskan Native on reservations were the highest undercount of any
population group in the country in 2010. Lower than 2000, but still the highest
in 2010.

We have been working since 2015 through consultations and direct partnering
with tribal nations to prepare and to get ready to conduct the census on their
lands. So we are hopeful that all of this effort that occurred -- starting in 2015
-- is going to pay off and we will have a better count this time.

Brian Bull:

Okay, so an improved count, but do you think that the nearly 5% undercount
will be avoided entirely, or do you think there might still be an undercount
given some of the challenges?

 Tim Olson:

Well, I wish I could give you an answer that there will be zero. But we won't
know until, you know, roughly a year or so after the census is completed.
When our - one of our surveys that goes along the side of the census does the
data collection and determines scientifically what the undercount is of these
populations. We won't know that though until sometime - Al is that 2021?

Albert Fontenot: Yes this is 20 - late 2021 (or a little further than that).

Tim Olson:

Yes. So it will be quite a while before we've got any data to substantiate
what's happened in that regard.

Brian Bull:

All right. (Unintelligible)

Michael Cook:

Thank you for that. And Operator, I believe we have two last callers?

Coordinator:

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mardi Link with the Traverse
Record-Eagle. Your line is open.

Mardi Link:

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. I cover five counties in Northwest Lower
Michigan. And Traverse City is about 100,000 people. That's our biggest
metropolitan, I guess you would call it, area. And in looking at our response
rate, I've noticed an up to 20 and sometimes even a 25% difference in our selfresponse rate. And I'm wondering if you see that kind of thing around the
country or if that would be unique to my area?

Tim Olson:

This is Tim Olson. I know in your part of Michigan, there are some (update
leave) areas where, because we've had to delay delivering the forms due to the
virus, they would have just received their forms in the more surrounding rural
areas, you know, as recently as three or four weeks ago. That, in turn,

 influenced a slower or a lower self-response in some areas.

What we see though, is the self-response nationally, of course, is very very
good. But within that self-response -- when you start looking across different
geographies -- it varies by state, and it varies down at the county level and
within the county level.

And it's generally - it's going to run from the mid- to low-50s up into the 70s,
and that variation is pretty typical. And that's why we've staffed the ability to
go in during non-response and contact all of those non-responding
households.

Albert Fontenot: There's one thing I would like to add to that, Tim. If there are a lot of vacation
homes in that area -- because we have a vacation home's as your usual home
elsewhere -- they're not calculated in the response-rate map the way the
normal (are).

They're left in the denominator in a response-rate map even though in the
actual calculation for your area you would not be penalized for them. The
response-rate map would show a lower rate in areas with a lot of vacation
homes because those homes, while we don't expect to have a respondent there,
are still in the denominator for that calculation.

Mardi Link:

Thank you.

Michael Cook:

Thank you Al. Thank you Tim. Operator, I believe we are down to our last
caller.

Coordinator:

Thank you. Our last question comes from Langston Taylor with Tampa Bay
Times. Your line is open.

 Langston Taylor: Hi. Thank you. I'll keep it quick. You mentioned the new requirements and
(IMPPE) for enumerated tracking, but also guidance or a protocol for
requirements for the enumerated to be regularly tested for the Coronavirus. Is
there any guidance in place for what happens if one tests positive, how long
they need to be no longer in the field?

Tim Olson:

Thank you for the question. So we do not run a testing program for our
employees. If somebody -- anybody who works for us - they would go
through the normal protocol in their locale as far as requesting the test and
getting that taken. Anybody who is positive or presumptive positive, we do
not let them work until there's been at least a 14-day window before they can
return to work.

Langston Taylor: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Michael Cook:

Thank you for that and, in closing, I would like to thank again Al Fontenot as
well as Tim Olson for making themselves available for media today to answer
questions about the programmatic aspects of the 2020 Census.

And if you missed it at the top -- I know that the number of people calling in
and dialing in has changed and ebbed and flowed throughout today's call -please visit 2020census.gov for more details. Looking at the electronic press
kit that we've posted specifically for today's briefing.

But also, as some of the callers have asked -- in talking about response rates -I encourage you to take a look at the Response Rate Map online at
2020census.gov to see specifically how your community and communities
across the country are responding to the 2020 Census.

 So, again, thank you for calling in and remember, if you do have any
questions that you weren't able to ask, please contact the Public Information
Office at PIO@Census.gov. Just send us an email, and we'll triage that as soon
as possible.

But this concludes the conference call. This is today's operational press
briefing. This is Michael Cook from the Public Information Office. Thanks,
everybody.

Coordinator:

That concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may
disconnect at this time.

END